Huawei Q&A: water resistance, Huawei Watch 2 and more

Huawei held the launch event for its P10 and P10 Plus this week, also revealing that the P8 Lite 2017, Huawei Watch 2 and P10 Lite would be coming to the country.

We also interviewed SA consumer business group GM Zhao Likun and senior director for smartphone product line marketing, Justin Zhang.

Both the Galaxy S8 and LG G6 are water resistant, and Huawei CEO Richard Yu initially claimed water resistance at the P10 global launch. Unfortunately, this wasn’t quite the case, but Zhang has clarified the comments.

“The reality is that we do want to have everything in the phone, but the more you pack in, it does affect other things…” Zhang explained. He added that a slim design, large battery and water resistance are difficult to put together.

We’re also tweeting photos with the P10 Plus at the launch. Have a sample. #P10isHereSA pic.twitter.com/ahmdqamwyT

— Gearburn (@gearburn) May 10, 2017

“However, we do understand consumers want to have peace of mind… So for the P10, we actually put a nanocoating in the system itself, so it gives you a certain level of protection against water damage,” the executive answered.

Zhang also said that the P10 Plus has an IPX3 rating for spill resistance.

Huawei has also been under the microscope after it emerged that it was using different types of memory chips (UFS 2.1, UFS 2.0 and eMMC 5.1) for its P10 range. However, Zhang said that regardless of the storage format, the phones achieve similar levels of performance.

The company has seen strong growth in the continent and in SA, in particular. Zhao says that the company’s marketshare in South Africa was in the range of 15 to 20%.

Huawei Watch 2 details for SA

More specifically, the GM said that marketshare above the $400 price bracket was “near 30%”, citing GfK statistics.

The interview also saw the executives confirm that the Huawei Watch 2 was coming to South Africa next month.

“We will start (the rollout) in cooperation with Vodacom, MTN and Telkom,” Zhao told media, saying that the Watch 2 supported cellular connectivity.

This article has been published in partnership with Huawei – read the details here.